An area of ongoing research and development is in improving wireless communication signal quality, speed, efficiency, or other characteristics. Wireless networks are frequently governed by 802.11 standards. While not all networks need to use all of the standards associated with 802.11, a discussion of the standards by name, such as 802.11n provides, at least partly because the standards are well-known and documented, a useful context in which to describe issues as they relate to wireless systems.
A specific area of wireless communication research and development is multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO). With MIMO, a transmitter may have multiple antennas for transmitting signals and a receiver may have multiple antennas for receiving the signals. For example, in a 3×3 (three transmitters and three receivers) MIMO system, stations can use three antennas to transmit and three antennas to receive. Most wireless local area network (WLAN) wireless access points (WAP) are capable of 2×2 or 3×3, though there is a small percentage of low-cost WAP that only support 1×1, 4×4 WLAN WAP are expected to hit the market soon, and higher-value MIMO is possible. For example, laptops often have 2×2 or 3×3 MIMO WLAN stations and smart phones often have 1×1 MIMO WLAN stations, with the lower values used primarily to conserve battery power. (Wireless data transmission is one of the biggest power drains on smart phone batteries.)
The foregoing examples of the related art are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. For example, wireless stations may use different protocols other than 802.11, potentially including protocols that have not yet been developed. However, problems associated with improving wireless communication characteristics. Other limitations of the relevant art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.